#14 We need to talk about Gru
W/C 4 July 2022
It’s been a sunny London this week and I’ve slept better. So basic isn’t it? But what a difference it makes.
This week I am going straight into two topics that are close to my heart, community and memes.
Now, on to the #content.
1. We need to talk about Gru
Now, you’ve seen the Minions memes and sure, it’s lolz and whatever. But going a bit deeper, there is one themes I’ve been interested in - how many people are tweeting about Minions and the suit to the cinema trend and how Morbious / Sony misunderstood meme. Now this is interesting because Morbios (awful) vs Minions (great).
Below is a Must read on Gen Z, digital culture, long (decade long) franchises and ya know, content actually having to be fun/good. Gen Z is also growing up right now, so the films they watched as kids will probably be popular for a while. Get used to some great memes and social content.
2. Everyone wants a community
Someone I know is raising at the moment and the question they’ve had a few times is ‘what is the community angle’. A fair question on the face of it, unless you’re actually a community professional.
Why? Because Community is a buzzword. It’s kinda meaningless, often it means customers and some sort of gimmick. Investors (often, perhaps at the smaller end) and also many, many brands like the idea of one, until they have to scale it and fund it properly over a period of time.
Honest question: is there a community that has scaled well? Like I’m talking millions, tens of millions of people engaging consistently with a brand/business? Does it matter? Throw in the Peloton? (Yes I ride) Glossier? GifGaf (the darlings of 2010), Tesla? (Shudder).
My theory, community does not scale (easily/well) in a genuine two-way deep way as one buzzword. Am I out of a job? I dunno.
Anyway, this is a good piece on why brands want communities and to co-create.
For the record I am very pro community thinking.
A Web3 thing.
Still a dumpster fire.
Odds and ends, basic links. Little commentary, just pure linkage, in wine terms, low intervention links.
Adieu.
Thanks again for reading, it really does make me smile when someone said they read my Substack (not a newsletter, remember) and they don’t point out the grammatical and spelling mistakes.
Hope you enjoyed it. See you next week.
Bonus.
Only Murders is back and. Iam really happy. Oh and UK folks, Atlanta S3 is back on Disney+ too - one of the best, best shows of the last 10 years.
All the spelling and grammatical mistakes in this Substack are on purpose to test you, actually. Well done. You got them all. No, I don’t need to know about them, you have that kudos.
Every time an episode of Atlanta from S3 starts without Earn, Al, Darius, and Van, I'm a little disappointed. And then I'm completely blown away. Such great script-writing and I love how they've opened it out.